


you want a better story

by eddiespaghetti (foxwatson)



Category: IT (1990)
Genre: Also of a sort, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, but also a lot of internal angst first so get ready for that, i wrote this because i was sad but i still couldn't make it THAT sad so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 11:43:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19869091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxwatson/pseuds/eddiespaghetti
Summary: "Eddie, Eddie, what are you saying, you're a virgin?""Yeah.""Well I can't help you with that, pal, but thanks for sharing."They were young when it happened, and even his own memories of it are still a little fuzzy, so maybe Richie can’t blame him for that. It’s not exactly like repression, what the fucking town and that monster does to his head, but that’s what his shrink always said it probably was, so it probably works something like repression. Does it hurt more or less to think that Eddie repressed it? It’s hard to decide.





	you want a better story

**Author's Note:**

> i've been trying to write this fic or something like it for like. seven or eight years?? which seems silly because this is so short but way back then there was nobody writing or reading reddie fic and it was just me and my wild headcanon about this one line, right, so. anyways here it is, and yes this is specifically miniseries fic which will probably make no sense if you haven't seen it but feel free to picture whoever you like.
> 
> anyways yeah, this is all because of that one exchange right outside the cave in the miniseries and the fact that ever since i put my reddie goggles on i was like. oh richie's an asshole there because he and eddie have already had sex, and that moment sucks for richie, too. so. here! take it! this is like the kindest possible version of this fic, i think, bc i'm bad at hopeless angst.
> 
> title credit to richard siken bc yes i went there
> 
> in reference to the archive warning: this fic makes reference to consensual sex between two underage characters, but the scene is not explicit

They were young when it happened, and even his own memories of it are still a little fuzzy, so maybe Richie can’t blame him for that. It’s not exactly like repression, what the fucking town and that monster does to his head, but that’s what his shrink always said it probably was, so it probably works something like repression.

Does it hurt more or less to think that Eddie repressed it? It’s hard to decide.

The point being - maybe he really doesn’t remember. Maybe it’s gone. Maybe Richie only ever dreamed it.

Maybe it’s not just a remark so pointed that it’s meant to stab straight into Richie Tozier’s sternum and stick there like a knife, but that’s what it does. It gives a whole new meaning to Eddie Spaghetti gets off a good one, really, and it would almost be funny if it didn’t hurt so goddamn bad.

The thing is, Richie’s scared and he’s pissed off and he wants to turn around and go home and drag Eddie with him, but they’re all down here in this fucking sewer instead, because Eddie was going and Richie Tozier would be damned straight to hell if he let Eddie go down here and didn’t come with him, so. Here he is. Eddie put a hand on his shoulder and looked in his eyes, and here he is, just like always, just like the moron he’s always been.

He’s damned either way, really, when it all comes down, but he’s not quite there yet.

Anyways, he’s in the sewer and he’s damp and pissed off and cold and he wants to go home, and Eddie pulls them all aside to make some big confession in case they all die down here, and it’s a lie. Maybe it’s not a lie on purpose, maybe it’s repressed, whatever, but it’s a lie.

Eddie Kaspbrak isn’t a virgin, because he and Richie had sex the night before Eddie left Derry.

They were just teenagers, and maybe Eddie means they didn’t go all the way in every possible way or something, but Richie takes one look at his genuine, wide-eyed gaze, and he knows that’s not what Eddie means. Either he doesn’t remember or he doesn’t think it counted.

Neither one of those options feels great.

So Richie mouths off, like an asshole, like always, beep beep, what the fuck ever.

Everyone’s pissed off, but he doesn’t care. He can’t possibly. Eddie doesn’t remember and there’s no more time and Richie can’t get him alone right now, so Richie gets to be angry, too. Just for now, he gets to be pissed off, and he doesn’t care what the rest of them think.

He cares what Eddie thinks. He always does. But there’s no fucking time.

In the time that Richie had been in LA, he realized it was strange that he couldn’t really remember exactly how he’d lost his virginity. He remembered being pretty young and still in high school, and he remembered it’d been a guy, some guy from his home town. In drunken confessionals with long time friends or in pillow talk while he passed a joint back and forth with someone, that was what he always said.

People had a tendency to ask, “High school sweethearts?” in that saccharine, condescending tone, and Richie would always laugh and shrug it off and feel a strange guilt ball up somewhere in his gut.

They thought it was cute - and he didn’t remember, didn’t know enough to tell them that it was one of the only other people who could ever completely understand him, the only one that had seen him, really seen him, and still wanted him. They’d been young when it happened, but now it was still true. At the restaurant, in the library, at the hotel, Richie still felt it, and he was sure Eddie did, too - but the memory had been one of the first things to come back, for Richie. It came rushing in with his first sight of Eddie, nearly brought him to his knees in a Chinese restaurant.

Maybe it had never come back for Eddie. Maybe it was just buried too deep, further than the town could put it, further because Eddie had blocked it himself.

Eddie stands there and tells everyone he’s a virgin, and Richie wants to shake him and yell in his face and say, “How could that not mean anything to you? How could that be gone? It’s fucking haunted me since I saw your face and set foot back in his hellhole town and you don’t even want to know that it happened,” but instead he just makes an asshole of himself.

Richie’s still thinking about it when they all rush in to fight the thing, and maybe that’s the only explanation for why he charges straight at it, no weapon, no plan, just trying to get Ben and Bill away and then getting caught there, making himself useless, leaving Eddie by himself when he never, ever should have.

Eddie does what he can to save all of them, of course he does, and Richie’s only awake in time to catch him, to hold him and just pray and pray and pray he can live somehow.

Everyone’s rushing in, and Richie just wants to push them all back and away, and he knows Eddie’s their friend, too, but if this is the end, if this is his last chance, Richie needs a moment, just one moment to himself.

He doesn’t get it, though, before Eddie loses consciousness.

Killing that thing doesn’t help their memories, which really just seems like a joke of a curse. What kind of curse doesn’t break when you kill the thing that caused it? Richie feels like it should be against some kind of cosmic rule somewhere.

Mike doesn’t really remember him by the time Richie goes in to visit. Bill’s preoccupied with his wife. Bev and Ben left town already.

All of them think Eddie died in the sewer, because they can barely remember each other’s names, and all their brains, his own included, are just fucking broken.

Eddie’s temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. He was in a coma for a week, and his spine is still swollen. Richie sits in his room every day, sits by Eddie’s bed and holds his hand, and they barely talk.

Every once in a while Eddie wakes up, and Richie feels a hand on his head, and Eddie, quietly, says, “Richie?” like he’s trying to remember, checking that it’s still there, and Richie nods, and Eddie goes back to sleep.

When Eddie’s awake, sometimes Richie’s allowed to take him for a walk, pushing him through the halls of Derry’s sad little hospital in his wheelchair.

Eddie’s spine starts to heal, and Richie starts talking, because he’s been quiet for so long he feels like he might burst.

“I think you’re gonna love L.A., Spaghetti Man, but then you’ve never lived anywhere you couldn’t freeze your balls off, so maybe you’ll struggle with just how nice the weather is - but honestly I think it’s gonna be great for you, you could probably use it. We can buy you your first pair of shorts since those old khaki ones you used to have when we were kids, and I’m sure just a glimpse of those ankles will drive all the ladies wild in a 100 mile radius of Sunset Boulevard. I’d bet you half my salary that we can solve your little problem you brought up in the sewer in no time, you just count on me.”

He just babbles like that until he makes Eddie smile, and he usually gets a mumbled “Beep, beep, Richie,” for his troubles.

He’s starting to forget things again about the sewer, and everyone who left town - but with Eddie right here, Richie still remembers. He remembers everything about the two of them.

He remembers how Eddie was 15 and he was 16 when Mrs. Kaspbrak told Eddie they’d finally be moving to New York. He remembers they only had a month left together and how it all felt so sudden. He remembers sneaking into the theater with Eddie, hiding in the balcony and throwing popcorn and leaning close just to whisper his comments in Eddie’s ear. He remembers Eddie hiding against his shoulder, still, in all the scary movies.

It rained, the day before Eddie was supposed to leave, and he wasn’t allowed to come outside. Richie was soaked, standing in the rain with no jacket. He wiped off his glasses and he climbed up a pipe and he knocked on Eddie’s window. Eddie yanked him in and gave him towels to dry off, and shushed him every time he said anything.

Finally, Richie had convinced Eddie to let him whisper while the rain was loud.

He remembers, still, that he managed to tell Eddie that he’d just had to come and say goodbye, that if they could figure it out maybe he could sneak Eddie back to his house and he wouldn’t have to leave.

He’s not sure, looking back, which one of them leaned in first. Maybe it was Eddie, always braver than he looked and braver than everyone thought he was. Maybe it was Richie, just being a moron, taking a leap.

Either way, he remembers their mouths meeting in the middle, an awkward smash of a first kiss. They pulled apart and then leaned back in, both of them, adjusting to make the kiss more comfortable. They’d gone on like that for a while, and then gone further, quiet in the sounds of the rain outside Eddie’s window.

Richie, remembers, too, sneaking back out, and going home, and feeling giddy and empty at the same time, filled up and hollowed out - to get something so precious and to lose it in the same day, maybe forever.

Back in the hospital, they’re so busy from all the havoc that when Eddie gets discharged, they just let Richie take him, because Eddie says he can.

“You know I never asked if you wanted to go home, or if you had something to go home to. I just bulldozed you into LA - but if you want to go somewhere else...”

Eddie shakes his head so hard he winces, but he only pauses for a moment. “No. God, no. Please, just - I don’t want to be a burden on you, but if you really don’t mind putting me up in LA, Richie, please just take me with you. I can get my own place once I’m back on my feet...”

“Now, there’s no need for that, Spaghetti Man. I got a great big house and no one to put in it except you and me, pal. You’re staying, and that’s final.”

Richie can practically feel Eddie relax, and that’s nice, isn’t it, even if that’s the only thing he gets.

They’re told not to take Eddie on a flight yet, so Richie has to drive them all the way back to California in the rental car with appropriate stops each night for rest, in whatever shitty motel they can find.

“It’s funny, having someone else drive me,” Eddie says one day. “I was a driver in New York. Before we ran into each other again.”

Richie doesn’t remember enough to correct him anymore about how they found each other. “Look at you with a real job. I just talk shit for a living. Still, you should be able to drive again once you’re all healed up, and there’s plenty of people need driving in LA - if you still care anything about doing it. Pretty sure we can both live comfortably on my comically large salary, but that’s up to you.”

Eddie hums.

It’s been sitting in the back of Richie’s mind for God knows how long when he finally breaks down and opens his big fat mouth again somewhere in Utah.

“Hey Eds - do you remember much from when we were kids?”

Eddie looks at him and blinks. “Here and there. Just stuff about us. Going to the movies, messing around in water somewhere. Why? What is it, Rich?”

“Do you remember the night before you moved away?”

“The night... Why do you put it like that?”

The thing is, Richie doesn’t know what Eddie’s face looks like in that moment, because he’s too chickenshit to check. His eyes stay firmly on the wheel or the road, and he shrugs. “Because there’s something I remember from the night you left and I’m starting to worry I dreamed it - wouldn’t have been the first time, and if you don’t remember anything, I’ll just go right back to that.”

There’s a moment of silence - and then the moment stretches to a long, heavy pause. Finally, Eddie’s voice drifts over, still small. “I thought I dreamed it. I just assumed. I thought I fell asleep, and I - it wouldn’t have been the first time. Like you said.”

“So we - you know what I mean.”

“I guess so.”

When Richie finally does glance over, Eddie looks a little ill, which doesn’t seem to bode well. Richie pulls the car over, just in case. “Hey, Spaghetti Man, you’re not looking so hot.”

“Beep beep, Rich.”

Awkwardly trying to give Eddie some space, Richie just drums his hands on the steering wheel until he accidentally hits too hard and the horn blares across the wide mountain valley they’re driving through.

Eddie starts to snicker then, and then the snickers turn into full blown laughs, and Richie just smiles and watches him.

When the laughter’s calmed down a little, Eddie wipes at his eyes under his glasses. “Oh God, I can’t believe I forgot how I lost my virginity, because I thought it was a dream. I don’t know why you’d ever wanna take me anywhere, Richie.”

“Well, you know, you really just knocked my teenage socks off, I guess,” Richie fires back, but that just makes Eddie laugh again.

“Oh God, come here,” Eddie says.

“Look if you’re gonna kill me, this is a great place to hide the body and all-“

“Would you shut up for once in your life so I could kiss you?”

And that’s hard to argue with, after everything. So Richie goes, and Eddie kisses him, and they kiss in the car until someone passing by honks at them. Richie flips them off, and they drive back to LA and - well the rest is history, really, because Eddie makes a hell of a comedy partner, and no one asks too many questions about why they live together, and somehow they made it through the other side.

And Eddie Kaspbrak definitely isn’t a virgin anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah okay so there it is, sorry to just show up with this like 938249023984 years too late when no one cares right now. how about that chapter two trailer!!! i live in constant fear. anyways, i'm back on this train i guess and there's probably more reddie to come again bc i have zero self control so. look forward to that!!


End file.
